Inside Track
Magnificent Corofin are in a league of their own
Inside Track with John McIntyre
THE opening ten minutes of Tuesday’s All-Ireland Club football final at Croke Park led us astray. It was the pioneering Slaughneil men who had settled the quicker, led by two points to one – including a majestic score from centre back Christy McKaigue after a lung-bursting run – and were also unlucky not to find the net when Paul Bradley took too long to pull the trigger.
Hot favourites Corofin looked a little rattled and were turning over possession too often for comfort in those opening salvos. It had all the hallmarks of a contest which would go down to the wire, but by the 23rd minute the Galway champions had reminded everyone why no team has been able to lay a glove on them in their current all-conquering campaign.
An unanswered 1-5, with Man of the Match Michael Lundy spearheading their attacking artillery, quickly opened daylight on their Derry rivals. By the end, they had ten points to spare but it could have been more, notwithstanding the fact that Slaughneil spurned an injury-time penalty which can only have been awarded in an act of charity as I could see no foul whatsoever on Cormac Doherty.
After that uncertain start, Corofin were a joy to behold. Their work ethic, support play, pace and class was again exceptional at this level and they are surely one of the greatest club football teams to have ever graced Croke Park, with the obvious potential to rewrite the record books in the years ahead. Certainly, all their rivals at local level must be despairing of even getting close to them in 2015.
The quality of Corofin’s support play was a lesson in selfless running and many county teams would have struggled to live with them on Tuesday. The final was done and dusted at the break as they had established a 1-8 to 0-3 advantage, with Lundy, Gary Sice and Ian Burke proving too elusive for a battling Slaughneil outfit whose credentials had been underlined in successfully negotiating a demanding route to Croke Park.
The decisive moment of the final came in the 15th minute when Sice superbly fielded an unintended aerial bomb from Gary Delaney before presenting Martin Farragher with the relatively routine opportunity of finding the net with a low finish to the corner. Corofin’s overall pace and commitment also ensured they were now winning most of the breaks and, essentially, the second-half was all about holding on to what they had.
Under the widely acclaimed management of Stephen Rochford, the Corofin squad’s single-mindedness and almost self-policing of their own standards has served them well over the past 15 months. They are driven men and, all over the field against Slaughneil, they eventually had too much of everything for an opposition who deserve respect for their breakthrough triumphs in Derry and Ulster last year.
You’d struggle to find a weak link on the Corofin team. Kieran Fitzgerald, Ciaran McGrath, the Silkes’, the Burkes’, Ronan Steede, Lundy, who should probably be sprinting for Ireland, the Farraghers’, Delaney, Sice, Greg Higgins and Tom Healy are now in a league of their own not just in Galway but in Ireland. And one suspects Corofin will probably be exactly in the same position in 12 months time.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
SOMETHING very odd happened to Tyrone in the Ulster championship in early April. On their home turf of Healy Park, they were doing nearly everything expected of them when leading Monaghan by five points at half-time. You couldn’t say for definite that the match was done and dusted, but the 2021 All-Ireland champions were in pole position.
You would have expected them to drive on against an honest if limited Monaghan outfit. Instead, Tyrone didn’t score for the opening 16 minutes of the second-half and in an enthralling finale, were left stunned by defender Ryan’s Toole’s stoppage-time goal snatching the honours for the Farney men on a 2-17 to 1-18 scoreline.
A couple of weeks later, Monaghan themselves had exited the Ulster title race when Derry comfortably got the better of them (1-21 to 2-10), leaving us more puzzled than ever by Tyrone’s dramatic decline since overcoming Mayo to claim Sam barely 20 months previously. Last year, they crashed out of Ulster by 11 points to Derry and subsequently came up six short against Armagh in the All-Ireland qualifiers.
Against that background, their recent loss to Monaghan shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. Tyrone may have made a shambolic defence of the All-Ireland title, but there is still a lot of quality in their ranks. They have an adventurous ‘keeper in Niall Morgan, while the long-serving Peter Harte, Darragh Canavan, Darren McCurry, Cathal McShane, Conor Meyler, Mattie Donnelly, and Conn Kilpatrick are all top-class performers when in the mood.
There’s hardly been a word about them for the past six weeks. Tyrone are lying low, desperately trying to rediscover the verve and cohesion which took them all the way in 2021. Their pride is on the line. It makes them dangerous opponents for Galway in the opening round of All-Ireland group matches at Pearse Stadium on Saturday.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Inside Track with John McIntyre
GALWAY footballers won’t get much credit for their easy victory over Sligo in Sunday’s Connacht Final in Castlebar, but when a team achieves something that hasn’t been done for 20 years, perhaps we should be a little more appreciative of the Tribesmen retaining the JJ Nestor Cup for the first time in two decades.
To be honest, if Galway were to live up to their standing as serious All-Ireland contenders, they needed to be doing a number on Sligo. In this year’s National League, the counties were three divisions apart and though Tony McEntee’s team achieved promotion and were on a nine-match unbeaten run, a serious rise in class faced them at MacHale Park.
Granted, Sligo made a bright start with three points in the opening five minutes from Pat Spillane, Sean Carrabine and the accurate Darragh Cummins, but they would only manage two more by the break despite having the wind behind them. Though wing back Luke Towey was catching the eye with his runs up-field, Galway rarely looked under pressure.
Sligo were bravely committing numbers to the middle third, which meant they were a little light in numbers around their own posts. They couldn’t afford to lose possession coming out of their own half, but that’s what happened in the build up to Galway’s second goal. Damien Comer overturned Cian Lally and from his counter-attack, Matthew Tierney expertly finished to the net at the near post.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
IS the Leinster hurling championship something of a sham compared to its Munster counterpart? Everybody knows who will end up in the provincial final in the east, but nobody knows the two teams who will feature in the ultimate battle for supremacy down south.
All-Ireland champions Limerick aren’t guaranteed to even make it out of the province, never mind reach the Munster final, after their narrow loss to Clare in Saturday evening’s epic at the Gaelic Grounds. Everything is still on the line for the five counties involved, although Waterford are again under serious pressure after losing their opening two matches.
In Leinster, there is little of that drama. Galway and Kilkenny are miles ahead of the rest; the only thing at stake is whether Dublin or Wexford – they meet in Croke Park on Saturday – will be the third team to emerge for the All-Ireland series. It’s a game which is hard to call. Wexford are going backwards while Dublin look callow as Micheál Donoghue is trying to build the nucleus of a new team.
Though Antrim are improving – they held the Dubs to a draw and only lost to Wexford by four points – the men from the Glens would be out of their depth in Munster; while Westmeath are proving cannon-fodder for everyone else. Since Galway headed east in 2009, they have clashed with Kilkenny in seven Leinster finals and another showdown is inevitable next month.
In contrast, every match in Munster is virtually do-or die. When Clare rolled into Limerick last Saturday, they knew another defeat after losing to Tipperary in the opening round would leave them on the precipice of exiting the championship. There’s a real dog-eat-dog appeal about all the games. In Leinster, there are two big hounds, and the rest are chihuahuas.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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